Payroll Accounting Adjustment (PAA): Tips and Tricks

Payroll Accounting Adjustments (PAAs) are a mechanism to transfer an employee’s salary and benefits expense to different worktags after payroll processing is complete.

PAAs may be needed for various reasons. Some may include:

Funding wasn’t ready in time (i.e. the grant or the worktags weren’t set up in time)
The manager didn’t provide updated funding in time
A keying entry mistake
Retroactive payroll corrections

For more information on how to actually complete a Payroll Accounting Adjustment you can follow along with the Initiate and Submit a PAA job aid. Below we will describe common pitfalls, best practices and overall general information regarding PAAs.

PAA Best Practices

Completing a PAA

Best Practices for Completing a PAA
When creating a PAA you are only moving the salary expense in the transaction. The Fringe Benefits are calculated and moved once the PAA is approved.
In the case of over/underpayments that need corrected by central payroll and are not on a grant, do not submit the PAA until central payroll corrects the issue. Otherwise, the PAA will need to be rescinded and reentered. In the case of overpayments on a grant, a PAA should be done immediately to get the charge off the grant, and it may need to be rescinded and re-entered once the central payroll correction is being completed.
PAAs cannot add or remove Federal Work Study (FWS) funding. Contact the Federal Work Study office with questions sfa-jobs@osu.edu.
Only central accountants are able to enter negative PAAs. Credits are caused by retroactive payroll corrections or payroll overpayments. Send a screenshot of the original entry outlining the full worktags where the credit needs to be moved along with a business purpose of the issue related to the need of this PAA (e.g., overpayment) to: No OSP grants: bf-ctl-payrollaccounting@osu.edu. For OSP grants: ospgrantsaccounting@osu.edu. For PAAs involving OSP grants, verify that the overpayment charged to the grant was not already moved to department funds (would offset negative/credit).
Split up PAAs by entering one per pay period.
You may only want to move a portion of an employee’s salary from a specific pay period. In these cases, remove the ‘excess’ salary from your current journal by using the minus button to avoid touching salary components that are not changing.
When the amount you are moving is less than the salary of the impacted lines, don’t worry about moving holiday, sick, and vacation time. If adjusting the salary pay component is sufficient, just adjust that. For example, an employee has a check that looks like this 1000 Salary Expense 200 Vacation Time Off 100 Holiday Pay If you only want to move 800 of wages, you should remove the Vacation and Holiday pay from your current journal lines since the salary line is enough to cover what you need to move.
Your current journal total must match your proposed journal amount to submit the PAA. If 1000 Salary was originally paid on CC12345, FD100, BL1234, FN100 and 800 of that needs to be funded from CC12345, FD520, BL1234, GR12345, FN100. Your proposed PAA should have two lines: 800 - CC12345, FD520, BL1234, GR12345, FN100 200 - CC12345, FD100, BL1234, FN100
The Summary Totals section is an optional section. It shows the difference between the Current Total Amount and the Proposed Total Amount, based on Pay Components, Position, and Worktags selected. The Current Total Amount and the Proposed Total Amount must match to successfully submit. You may choose to use this feature to ensure your PAA is moving all wages properly.

Additional OSP Considerations

Additional Best Practices for Completing a PAA with OSP Grants
Vacation/sick payouts and bonuses can never be on a grant. This is monitored by OSP. Any PAAs entered with vacation/sick payouts or bonuses on a grant will be reversed (OSP will enter a new PAA to remove the payout from the grant).
OSP related PAAs will include a required questionnaire that will trigger in Workday for you to complete Within 90 days, answer questions 1 and 2. After 90 days, all of the questions need to be answered. To ensure a smooth and timely approval from OSP, provide detailed and accurate responses. Comprehensive answers help demonstrate proper justification and compliance with sponsor guidelines.
Any PAAs with OSP Grants initiated over 30 days ago will be cancelled in order to run effort certification. A Workday and Outlook email notification is sent to the initiator and pending approver(s) of the PAA prior to cancelling it. To avoid your PAA from being canceled use the Payroll Accounting Adjustments Status report to monitor your PAAs are being approved timely.

Additional Best Practices for Completing a PAA with OSP Grants

Vacation/sick payouts and bonuses can never be on a grant.

This is monitored by OSP.
Any PAAs entered with vacation/sick payouts or bonuses on a grant will be reversed (OSP will enter a new PAA to remove the payout from the grant).

OSP related PAAs will include a required questionnaire that will trigger in Workday for you to complete

Within 90 days, answer questions 1 and 2.
After 90 days, all of the questions need to be answered.
To ensure a smooth and timely approval from OSP, provide detailed and accurate responses. Comprehensive answers help demonstrate proper justification and compliance with sponsor guidelines.

Any PAAs with OSP Grants initiated over 30 days ago will be cancelled in order to run effort certification.

A Workday and Outlook email notification is sent to the initiator and pending approver(s) of the PAA prior to cancelling it.
To avoid your PAA from being canceled use the Payroll Accounting Adjustments Status report to monitor your PAAs are being approved timely.

PAA Post Submission

Best Practices for Post Submission of a PAA
Timely review and approval is necessary to avoid PAA lockouts and/or cancellations. Until a PAA for a pay period is fully approved, that period is locked for other PAAs. Any initiator has access to cancel an inflight PAA and may need to do so in order to make corrections.
The final approval date for the PAA becomes the effective accounting date in Workday.
After the final approval of a PAA, users should validate that the debit and credit for the salary expense and fringe are properly reflected in the general ledger. Use the Find Journal Lines – OSU Payroll Detail report in Workday to help validate this information.
Ledger accounts and fringe rates are automatically calculated by Workday after the PAA is approved and not available for selection when processing a correction.
Fringe rates are calculated based on when the PAA is approved not when the original transaction occurred. If Fringe has changed from the first date the salary and fringe expense were incurred, the PAA credit to the original source and expense to the new source will leverage the fringe rates as of the date the PAA was approved.

Process

Confirm PAA is needed to Create a PAA to Cost Center Manager Approval to Principal Investigator Approval (Grants) to OSP Approval (Grants)*

*Anything greater than 90 days requires OSP approval.

Roles

Business Role	Business Responsibilities	Security Roles
Requester	The Requester identifies a PAA is needed. The Requester initiates the PAA. The Requester is responsible for collecting/providing the information required for the PAA including responses to the OSP questionnaire.	Payroll Accounting Adjustment Specialist
Cost Center Manager	Reviews and approves all PAAs. Will route to multiple Cost Center Managers if multiple cost centers are affected. Responsible for reviewing the PAA including any Additional Information or Comments from the initiator or other reviewers and approvers. Note: Responses to the OSP Questionnaire are included in the Additional Information section.	N/A
Principal Investigator	Review and Approval. Will route to multiple Principal Investigators if multiple grants are affected.	N/A
Office of Sponsored Programs OSP Approver	Approves when: A grant is affected, and it has been more than 90 days since pay period ended (whether it is an OSP grant or not). A grant is affected, and the budget date changes (whether it is an OSP grant or not). Expenses for sick/vacation payouts are transferred to OSP. The Salary Over the Cap worktag is used in the proposed adjustment or removed from the current journal lines.	N/A
Additional Approver(s)	Approvers can choose to route the PAA to the Senior Fiscal Officer, the Manager or the Manager liaison for the worker selected on the PAA. Once an approver is added, this approval is required to complete the PAA.	N/A

Reports

Report Name	Description	Process Steps Supported
Find Journal Lines - OSU Payroll Detail	Provides the most granular reporting on payroll accounting lines in the general ledger. Every field in the operational journal line is included in this report. The report is run based on accounting date and costing company. It will only return payroll expense ledger accounts. It can be run for encumbrances.	View Employee Salaries in the GL before and after a PAA.
Payroll Accounting Adjustments Status	This report is run to identify any Payroll Accounting Adjustments and where they are sitting in the business process. Used to review where Payroll Accounting Adjustment transactions are in the business process and to confirm things are moving along as expected. Should be used prior to running effort certifications and by finance teams in a timely fashion to see if any Payroll Accounting Adjustments will cause issues with reporting.	Track the status of PAAs. View outstanding approvals.

Report Name

Description

Process Steps Supported

Find Journal Lines - OSU Payroll Detail

Provides the most granular reporting on payroll accounting lines in the general ledger. Every field in the operational journal line is included in this report. The report is run based on accounting date and costing company. It will only return payroll expense ledger accounts. It can be run for encumbrances.

View Employee Salaries in the GL before and after a PAA.

Payroll Accounting Adjustments Status

This report is run to identify any Payroll Accounting Adjustments and where they are sitting in the business process.

Used to review where Payroll Accounting Adjustment transactions are in the business process and to confirm things are moving along as expected.
Should be used prior to running effort certifications and by finance teams in a timely fashion to see if any Payroll Accounting Adjustments will cause issues with reporting.

Track the status of PAAs. View outstanding approvals.

Training and Practice Aids

Resource Type	Resource Name	Resource Description
Job Aid (ARC)	Payroll Accounting Adjustment (PAA) Overview	Overview of the PAA process with links to the specific job aids.
Job Aid (ARC)	Get Ready to Submit a PAA	Information on payroll accounting basics and what is needed before beginning a PAA.
Job Aid (ARC)	Initiate and Submit a PAA	Instructions to initiate a PAA.
Job Aid (ARC)	Approve a PAA	Instructions for an approver to approve a PAA.
Job Aid (ARC)	View a Submitted PAA	Information on routing and instructions to view submitted PAAs.
Job Aid (ARC)	Key Concepts for PAAs with Grants	Information specific to PAAs with sponsored grants.
Job Aid (ARC)	Salary Over the Cap PAAs	Information and steps to complete salary over the cap PAAs.
Training (BuckeyeLearn)	Payroll Accounting Adjustments in Workday	This 42 minute eLearning introduces Payroll Accounting Adjustments, or PAAs, and provides information on how they impact the General Ledger (GL).
Training (BuckeyeLearn)	Payroll Accounting Adjustments (PAAs) for Retro Earnings	This 12-minute course is an introduction to using Payroll Accounting Adjustments, or PAAs, for Retro Earnings. Note that you should complete the Payroll Accounting Adjustments in Workday course before completing this course. This module covers how to enter a PAA when the employee has a retroactive payroll entry associated with their earnings for a given pay period. A retro period is created when earnings from a prior pay period are paid in a subsequent pay period.

Frequently Asked Questions

I’ve become aware of a payroll overpayment tied to a grant. What should I do?

If central payroll is not already aware of the overpayment, they must be notified as soon as possible. A PAA needs to be completed to remove the charge from the grant and move it to the department as soon as you become aware of an overpayment. The offset will come when the overpayment is collected / credited to the department. The sponsor should not hold the incorrect charge.

How do I correct a PAA that has a negative number/credit balance in a worktag combination?

Generally, the credits are caused by payroll overpayments and require a negative PAA to move them. Note that a PAA is not needed if the debit and credit zero each other out. For example, this is typically related to a retro vacation time that was entered. Units are unable to enter negative PAAs; they can only be completed centrally. Reach out to the following emails for assistance, by sending a screenshot of the original entry and outlining the full worktags where the credit needs to be moved along with the business purpose of the issue relating to the need of this PAA:

For PAAs with no grant impacts: bf-ctl-payrollaccounting@osu.edu. If a pay reversal is required, that needs to be completed prior to entering the PAA since the PAA will block the pay reversal. (Highlight this for non-grants only)
For PAAs with grant impacts: ospgrantsaccounting@osu.edu. For PAAs involving OSP grants, verify that the overpayment charged to the grant was not already moved to department funds as outlined in FAQ #1 above (would offset negative/credit).

Can I export the Current Lines and Proposed Adjustments Lines from a PAA into Excel?

Prior to creating a PAA, you cannot export the lines into Excel but if the PAA is in the “Saved for Later” or “Submitted” status, you are able to export those lines into Excel. You may need to search for the PAA from the Payroll Accounting Adjustment Status – OSU report or by searching for the worker and viewing their Worker History.

Contacts

For general support, please contact your college or department administrative support team, Service Center support team, and/or your Fiscal Support Team.

For questions related to PAAs, please contact payroll accounting or grants accounting:

For non-grant PAAs: bf-ctl-payrollaccounting@osu.edu
For PAAs involving a grant: ospgrantsaccounting@osu.edu
To retroactively correct Federal Work Study (FWS) Funding you cannot use a PAA. Work with the Federal Work Study Office: sfa-jobs@osu.edu.

Main navigation